"The mainstay of biology" – Clues to the adaptation of species to climate change hidden in their DNA code

Posted Nov 2, 2018

"Only about 3,300 of the 1.5 million known species have had their genomes sequenced," said Harris Lewin of the University of California, Davis. "The gaps in our knowledge are much greater than we know. So we do not complete the pieces of the puzzle. most of the puzzle is empty.

A mission to sequence the genome of every known animal, plant, fungus and protozoan – a group of unicellular organisms – the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) has been described as a "shot of biology". Scientists say clues about how species adapt to changing environments could be hidden in their DNA code.

The goal is to create an entirely new inventory of life on planet Earth by reading the genetic code of each organism belonging to a vast group called eukaryotes – essentially species composed of multiple cells whose DNA is linked to a nucleus.

The main ambitions of the project, reports the BBC, are of three kinds:

Basic Science: Genomes will be an inventory of knowledge about the biology of life on the planet. Drawing a parallel between the human genome project and the first human march on the moon, Professor Lewin said that although the specific challenges were very different, they had one thing in common: "An investment in basic science without knowing exactly where that would lead. "

Conservation: To protect endangered species from threats such as climate change, scientists want to understand the genetic code that underpins their adaptations to their environment. Species of special interest for conservation, such as the Golden Eagle, have already been targeted for genome sequencing.

Human well-being: Identifying the code of "useful traits" could reveal, for example, medicinal properties embedded in the DNA of an organism or ways to protect vital plant species from drought and disease.

The price of a "life inventory" is estimated at $ 4.7 billion (£ 3.6 billion), which, according to project officials, will come from charities and governments around the world . On Thursday, 17 institutions committed to the common goal of completing the 1.5 million genomes. The raising of funds will be part of this ten-year mission.

Julia Wilson, of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, told the BBC that the value of the project to society would be immense, laying the foundation for "all areas of biology and biotechnology. We are talking about new drugs, new fuels for the future, "she said. "We are limited for the moment by our imagination – we can not even imagine what that would tell us."

"Look at agriculture," Lewin said. "Three-quarters of our global food supply depends on only 12 crops. We need to identify the genetic sources of improved resilience, especially to drought in the face of climate change, to protect our food supply. "

This mission goes well beyond food sources; Australian biologist Jenny Graves, of Melbourne's La Trobe University, estimates that the 1.5 million species it contains could contain valuable secrets that we had not even thought of. "We do not know what happens before watching. Just from the midges and pond scums, we learned how the chromosomes are built, which makes them stable and we learned that genes can be there [in their genome] but not expressed.

"There are many organizations we do not know anything about yet," she added. "And they can have totally blinding ideas about which we do not know anything."

The Daily Galaxy via the BBC and